


Second Chances

by EmeraldPhoenix1221



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Mental Health Issues, Not Compliant with Avatar Comics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27882901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldPhoenix1221/pseuds/EmeraldPhoenix1221
Summary: A year after Sozin's Comet, Ty Lee decides to pay a visit to a former friend, wondering if everyone really deserves second chances.
Kudos: 6
Collections: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Discord Community Archive





	Second Chances

It had been a little over a year since Sozin’s Comet.

Things were still far from peachy, but, truth be told?

Ty Lee couldn’t remember feeling more fulfilled. Her aura was practically glowing.

The situation in the (former) Fire Nation Colonies had been defused, and the de-escalation efforts had been pretty successful in easing the tension in preparation for more… detailed talks on what the future would hold.

She had breathed a sigh of relief when the news came. She could feel the world do the same. It was no wonder - the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation had actually fought a pitched battle, barely a year removed from the two powers going at each other in the longest, most destructive war in history. Everything Avatar Aang and Zuko and the rest of them had fought for was so close to going up in smoke.

Literally.

Mai had arranged for a contingent of Kyoshi Warriors to be stationed in the Fire Nation capital of Caldera permanently, on a rotating schedule. It was spun as a symbolic gesture of goodwill between the two nations, but Mai really just wanted to ensure Zuko had the best security possible. People he could really trust. It was a big responsibility.

Ty Lee knew they could handle it, though.

Being back in Caldera was nice. There was so much to do and so much to see, so many people to meet or catch up with. On her time off, of course.

There was still one thought that hadn’t left her mind, though.

She’d been putting it off since she arrived. One night, after her shift ended at the Royal Palace, she finally decided to do it.

She walked out of the Palace gates, made a right, and hailed a stagecoach.

“Where to?” the driver asked.

“The prison.”

**…**

The prison in the southwest corner of the city was an imposing building in its own right. The darkness and light rain did it no favors. Ty Lee held her shawl to her head with one hand as she hopped from the coach.

She stood in the rain and stared at the building for a moment as the stagecoach clattered off.

Taking a deep breath, she made her way inside.

It being the middle of the night, she wasn't surprised that it was pretty much deserted. A few guards could be seen patrolling the corridors and on the ramparts outside, but they were few and far between.

The one posted at the entrance looked fast asleep.

She rapped on the desk to get his attention.

His eyes snapped open; hadn't been totally asleep after all.

"Visiting?" he guessed.

She nodded.

"Alright," the guard said as he reached for a quill. "Name?"

She pointed at herself and arched her eyebrows. The guard gave a curt nod. "Ty Lee."

The guard scribbled on the parchment. "Who're you here for?" he asked without looking up.

"Azula."

The guard abruptly stopped writing and slowly looked up at her. "What?"

"I'm here for Pri- former Princess Azula."

The guard blinked twice, then scoffed. "Look," he said, shaking his head, "you must know how much security she's under. I can't just clear that from the front desk."

She pulled a small note from her pocket, marked with Zuko’s personal seal, and slid it over to the guard. Getting that had taken quite a bit of persuasion. Well, it had been more like pestering. But still.

The guard read the note over several times, then checked the seal against a copy. He sighed. “Listen carefully. This is how this is gonna go. I’m going to grab someone off one of the partols. You’re going to follow them to the Asylum Wing. You'll get thirty minutes. They’re going to keep an eye on everything that happens from the time you enter that cell until the time you leave. **Don’t. Try anything.** Got it?”

Ty Lee nodded. 

"Wait here."

She threw her hood back over her head and did as she was told. The guard stopped one of the patrollers as they came down the hall, made a few gestures and finally pointed to her. She waved back and smiled. The captain (she assumed, catching his insignia for the first time) went back to the front desk, motioning with his head to the guard that was to be her escort.

She nodded again and made to follow the other guard.

…

The Asylum Wing was small compared to the rest of the complex. The study of psychology as it related to criminality was incredibly new. Even then, the entire field of 'psychology' (or ‘mentalism,’ as the less clinical term) was still in its infancy, having only gotten any real attention after the war’s end, with entire populations suffering from trauma that was eventually found to be entirely of the mind. Only a handful of healers in the entire world were trained or in the process of being trained in it.

So, Azula was one of maybe five inmates in the entire wing.

The five-minute walk to her cell passed in near total silence.

Abruptly, the guard stopped and turned to her right. She opened a slit in the outer door, then turned a knob to open a vent.

"You got a visitor!"

Ty Lee felt her chest tighten. She swallowed a bout of anxiety and tried to steady her breath. She was only mostly successful.

The inner door swung open with a low metallic _creak_. The guard motioned inside, and she took one last deep breath before stepping into the ‘cooler’ room, built to impede firebending.

Inside was a smaller room half taken up by a cell. The room was all but bare, with a small table with a lit candelabra and a chair the only things on the near side. Beyond that was a set of iron bars and the cell itself, housing a cot, a small mirror and washbasin, a curtained alcove -

And one former Princess of the Fire Nation.

Azula lay on the cot in shabby prison garb, facing the wall. If she heard Ty Lee enter, she didn't stir. The door creaking shut, however, caught her attention. She rolled over and squinted into the doorway. 

Ty Lee walked about a meter and a half further into the room - and into the candlelight. She locked eyes with Azula, but could tell her old 'friend' had yet to recognize her.

She removed her hood. In a flash, Azula's face cycled through emotions, from surprise to disbelief to pain, before finally settling into a vitriolic sneer, eyes burning a hole clear through her.

"Get. Out." Azula's voice shook. Ty Lee knew it was from rage much more than anything else, but it was oddly hard to tell. She pulled out the chair from the table.

" **I said** **_GET OUT!_ **" the former princess screamed, shooting upright in her crude bed. Ty Lee had already sat down, and had little intention of moving.

Azula was visibly shaking with emotion, breaths coming in erratic huffs, clearly visible in the cold of the cell. What little Ty Lee could gauge of her aura was much the same. Erratic. Splintered. Unbalanced. She decided to wait before saying anything.

"Who put you up to this? Huh!? Zuzu? Mai?"

Ty Lee knew that both of them had called her idea insane, but remained silent.

"That's why you're here, isn't it? To save me? To _redeem_ me?" Azula's voice was uneven, but dripping with malice.

“I want to help you." Ty Lee's voice was barely above a whisper, in spite of herself. Azula scoffed.

"And what makes you think I want to be helped?"

"Don't you?"

"I'm a monster, remember? Don't tell me you've forgotten. I don't recall you being _that_ much of an airhead."

Ty Lee bristled at the insult, but only blinked in response. "I remember that that's what you said."

"What, you think I was wrong?"

"I don't know." She really didn't.

"Well, you must. You wouldn't be here otherwise. You don't think I'm a monster?"

"I think you _acted_ like one."

"Oh? Just… 'acting' like a monster. Of course. But it was enough to frighten you." Azula flashed a soulless smile.

In a flash of movement, she leapt from the cot, arm outstretched and two fingers pointed at the candelabra on the table.

A pathetic *pfft* of purple-blue flame shot between two bars and dissipated harmlessly a full meter away from Ty Lee. She hadn't flinched.

For a moment, Azula’s face seemed to be lost in conflict, her mask slipping down, eyes darting towards the ground and narrowing as if she was thinking clearly and wondering why she’d just done that. Her aura stabilized as well - still shattered, but no longer volatile. She huffed in Ty Lee’s direction, blowing several strands of her disheveled hair, then returned to her cot and the position she'd been in when Ty Lee had arrived, with the addition of sheets pulled over her head.

Ty Lee dug out a stuffed mochi from her pouch and started munching on it. After taking a drink from her waterskin, she moved up to the bars and sat cross-legged on the floor. She pulled another rice cake out and wrapped it up in a cloth.

"I brought some stuffed mochi. Cherry. I remember cherry was your favorite." There was no response.

She hadn't been expecting one.

Undeterred, she slid the treat across the floor and into the cell. It stopped maybe a quarter meter from the cot. Azula hadn't moved.

Ty Lee spent another few minutes finishing her mochi and most of her water, then got up to leave.

Azula's treat remained untouched.

Ty Lee sighed softly, and made her way toward the door. As she opened it, she heard a flurry of movement behind her. She snuck a sideways glance back, but only caught Azula shifting position in bed. But the mochi was gone.

She smiled to herself and left the room.

…

"Hey, look who's still alive."

Ty Lee gave her friend Mai a small smile as she rushed into The Jasmine Dragon. While the original was still operational in Ba Sing Se, Zuko’s uncle Iroh had recently opened a branch in Caldera so he could continue to pursue his passion of tea making (and playing Pai Sho) while remaining available for Zuko to rely on for advice as he got used to his new responsibilities. It was a rather small shop, unassuming from the outside and only modestly decorated on the inside.

“Sorry I’m late, I had a thing.”

"Mm-hm." Mai sipped on a cup of tea while Ty Lee ordered a cup and a pastry for herself before joining her old friend at the table.

"So, how'd it go?" Mai asked.

"How'd what go?"

Mai narrowed her eyes and gave her an incredibly bemused look. "You know what. Your visit with Azula."

"Oh." She smiled sheepishly. "Right. That. It… was alright. Awkward. That was the first time I'd even seen her since… well, since Boiling Rock."

"That it?"

"She… may have shot fire at me."

She was surprised Mai didn't say 'I told you so,' but her biting her cheek and arching her eyebrows conveyed the same thing. "Well, it didn't even look like she was aiming at me. I think she was just trying to scare me," she continued.

"Sure." Mai looked off, taking a few sips of her tea, evidently lost in thought. "Did it work?" she asked after a few moments of silence.

"No. I think it had more of an effect on her than it did on me.”

Mai nodded slowly, evidently declining to comment on that last thought. "Good… Do you think there was any point in going at all?"

"Maybe. I brought her some mochi, and she took it. Eventually."

Mai stared at her for a while, then sighed and looked down, shaking her head. "Look… I'm going to be honest. I think you're wasting your time."

Ty Lee opened her mouth to reply, but Mai wasn't finished. "I don't know what you see in there that says she's worth the trouble, but some people just…” She trailed off.

"There are some things that push people beyond the pale. And we're not responsible for going out after them. She's not worth it."

Ty Lee let her gaze drop to the table as she slowly nibbled on her food. Mai sighed and got up to leave, but bent over and gave her head a small hug on the way out.

She spent the next few minutes silently finishing her tea, lost in thought. A voice from behind the counter shook her out of her reverie.

"For what it's worth, I think that what you are doing is very admirable."

She recognized the voice as Iroh. She hadn’t noticed he was working at the shop when she came in. He made his way over to her table, still drying a cup. "May I sit with you?"

She nodded. He sat down across from her, trying very hard to get a stain out of that cup. "You know, I thought you'd be thinking along the same lines as Mai and Zuko about this," she admitted.

Iroh shrugged. "Maybe once. Now, I'm less sure." He put the cup down, either because he had finally gotten the spot or because he'd simply given up. "I was able to help Zuko. You know I was with him during his banishment. I did everything I could to help him grow beyond the damage. The scars. Having that time alone - more or less - with him, away from his father, was… crucial, I believe.

“I’ll confess, I had seen Azula as a lost cause. By the time I’d returned from my travels, without their mother there to act as even a slim counterweight, my brother had already bent her completely to his will.” Iroh’s brow had furrowed at the thought of the former Firelord’s abuse, but softened into something resembling regret. “Or so it seemed. I’m sad to say that I didn’t get to know her as well as perhaps I should have, before everything. If there’s something there, beyond the brokenness and the… Well, you would be in a much better position to see it than I ever was.”

Ty Lee drank the last of her tea, dimly aware of the fact that it was now lukewarm. She gave a small sigh and gazed out the window at the now-setting sun.

And remembered she had a shift at the palace.

“Shoot!” she exclaimed, rushing to gather her things (though she admittedly hadn’t brought much), thanking Iroh for his time and the tea. He chuckled, and strode to the counter to grab a fruit.

"Jiro for the road?"

She opened her mouth to politely decline, but her stomach grumbled, and she nodded.

Iroh tossed her the orange fruit and she snatched it out of the air with her free hand. He held out his hand to stop her from leaving for a moment.

"Ty Lee, before you leave. In the end, people must make the decision to find their way back to the light themselves. All you can do is give them the chance - and there is no shame in that."

**…**

"I don't think so."

Ty Lee made a pouting face, even though she'd been expecting Zuko's answer to be along those lines.

It was late at night, and he began walking back to his "office" to complete the rest of the assorted paperwork that piled up on an almost daily basis. She followed behind him, not about to let it drop that easily.

"Come on, Zuko, don't you think-"

Her friend spun around, the fury in his expression catching her off guard. She involuntarily recoiled.

"Don't I think _what_? She threw you and Mai in prison, almost killed Aang, almost killed _me_ , and tried to kill Katara. Worked with my father until the very end. Masterminded the takeover of Ba Sing Se and almost ended the war right then. She's _dangerous_. She's hurt almost everyone I care about.

"You want to know what I _think_? Some people don't **deserve** second chances."

Zuko turned back around, his cape _swishing_ and almost hitting her in the face. Still reeling from being the focus of the anger she only seldom saw from him, she nonetheless felt her expression harden.

“Didn’t you?” He froze. A few seconds passed. “Didn’t _I_? How about Mai? What about your uncle?”

“Ty Lee-” he began, but she wasn’t about to stop.

“Didn’t we all? Hasn't this whole last year been built on second chances? I certainly did things I’m not proud of. Mai and I helped with that coup. And, if I’m remembering right, _so did you._ What makes us different? Is it just because you say so? You may be Firelord now, but that doesn’t give you the right to decide who deserves second chances.”

She fell silent, sensing that she had hit a nerve, but had no idea which one. Zuko let out a heavy sigh, then walked over to his desk, leaving her in the doorway, still unsure if the conversation was over. 

"I want to give her a chance, not pardon her. It's up to her to find her way back - it's not a crime to give her a map," she said, almost to herself. She wasn't sure that analogy made any sense, or if Zuko was even still listening. A small laugh told her he was.

"You sound like you've been talking to my uncle."

"Maybe.”

Zuko smirked, then began writing out a note, finishing it off by stamping the royal seal near his signature. Sifting through a stack of papers, he picked up a small card, then turned around to put the note in a scroll case. Finally, he walked back to her, handing her the scroll with the card tied to it.

"That note's another bit of security clearance - permanently this time."

She pointed to the card. "What's this?"

"That's a calling card for the mentalist who took Azula's case. If you're serious about wanting to help… she'd know the best way for you to do that."

She nodded, then looked up at him and smiled. "Thanks, Zuko."

Her friend inclined his head in acknowledgement. She stuck her arms out in front of her, clearly gesturing for a hug.

“I don’t know if that’s really profes- _oof!_ ” Zuko was cut off suddenly.

She hadn’t really been _asking_ him for a hug, just giving him a warning that one was coming whether he liked it or not.

**Author's Note:**

> I gave this a 'AU - Canon' tag based on the fact that I added in the concept of there being healers who specialized as proto-psychologists/therapists. As Ty Lee thinks to herself in an info dump that I hope isn't jarring at the beginning of the third scene, I thought it would have made sense for mental disorders to receive study and treatment after the war, seeing as so many people would likely be dealing with PTSD and related issues.  
> With this in mind, I think another divergence point might be the degree to which Azula 'broke.' It seemed like, canonically, she was just locked in solitary confinement in a straitjacket. In this timeline, she'd been receiving treatment from a 'mentalist' almost from the get-go, with much less of a relative danger level. Also, I put her in one of those 'cooler' rooms from The Boiling Rock, because it made sense - keep it cold enough to impede firebending, but not cold enough to, you know, kill a person. Certainly more humane than a goddamn straitjacket.


End file.
